Fourth May Blog

Starting this blog with another of my story snippets. It has no title, as yet, if at all.

“When is it going to stop?”
“When is what dear?”
“This wind. I hate the wind. Especially at this time of year”
Martha glanced out as she passed by the kitchen window. Yes, it was still blowing out there, but at least the sun was shining. That had to be a good thing, right? Warmer, at the very least.
“Does it always blow this hard and for this long? I mean, when will summer actually start in these parts? Chilly! I get frozen to my marrow, so high up.” Sandra pulled out a chair and sat at the table. Her mother poured a cup of coffee and set it down in front of her daughter.
‘My dear, have you forgotten so soon? Three years ago, you said you loved it here.” Martha brought her own cup over to the table, sitting down opposite Sandra. Staring at that face, so well known to her and yet, she hardly knew her at all these days. Lines had developed. A grey pallor showed on her once fresh pink face. These changes worried Martha. Her daughter had suffered at his hands, taken her away from a loving home to obscurity, poverty, a strange environment. Now finally, a messy divorce. Concern filled her.
“I wish you could have stayed at the old home,” Sandra sighed. “I loved that place. Loved the town. All the nice people. Oh mum, if only I had realised then. I would never have married him. Would never have left you and dad.” Teardrops welled from her eyes, ran down her greying cheeks. She was unable to mop such a flood.
Martha could barely refrain from crying herself, but knew that crying solved nothing, other than to absolve from guilt the pain of the crier. When blood flowed, did it not cleanse a cut, a tear, a poisonous intrusion: so too tears flow, cleansing the eyes, clearing the mind, rejunenating and regrowing the parts that have been damaged. A liquid bandage for the soul.
Reaching out, she took Sandra’s hand, it was ice-cold. Hers was warm, enfolding, heart-warming and she clasped hard, with such strength as to overpower the demon besetting her daughter. “it will pass.” She spoke softly, like a balm: a calm breeze to dry the tears, a sweet embrace that only a mother can give.
Sandra now fussed for a tissue. “Did you feel this bad when dad went?” She asked, as if asking gave meaning to his going.
“Not in the same way!” A stray tuck at the corners of her mouth, not quite a smile, for that, it did not rate. But a faint yearning, a wisp of something what would never again be. “I knew he was gone forever; knew that what we had was as much as I was ever going to get.”
“I thought you told me Jack Santini asked you to dinner?”
“He did, dear.”
“Did you go?”
“No! I thought I told you.”
“You may have done. Really mum, my head hasn’t been on the right way since Gill and I broke up. Why not?”
Martha sighed. “It was just too soon. Your dad and me, we had a great marriage. Losing him was like losing a part of myself. The best part.” She put her hand up to forestall her daughter’s next question. “I told Jack that it would be a very long time before I went out with another man. Jack did not wait very long after that before he met a woman on his trip East. My friend Emily rings me from time to time with local gossip. She is half his age, brassy blond, name of Marina Federland I am reliably informed. Though now she goes under the name of Marina Santini. Not sure if they actually got married, or not.”
“You lost out there then?” Sandra was now under contol again, a soggy tissue clasped in her other hand.
Martha saw it, let go of th hand she was holding, grasped the tissue and got up to bin it, taking both cups back with her to the coffee maker. “Want another?” she enquired.

———————-

Sometimes writing is a series of short sharp pieces. Best to set them down, see if they like being aired. There may be nothing to them, in the end. But they do fill vacant spaces and can be available at some future point in time where I might want to ‘take up the cudgels’ as it were. Utelize them in a piece more meaningful than just ‘ a piece of work’.

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4 thoughts on “Fourth May Blog”

I tend to do this a lot. Right in the middle of doing something else, usually. Something will appear in my head, demanding to written down. Sometimes they lead to bigger and better things, so I never ignore them.